Schools and boys

Image source

The Czar of Muscovy hits on the problem of public schools and their reluctance to allow actual measures of teaching performance:

But rather than blame the teacher—the Царица consistently maintains that only about 18%–20% of teachers actually want to be in the mandatory union—the key thing here to remember is that giving students letter grades also assigns grades to the school district. If you eliminate failing grades out of the district, it is so much easier to cover up how bad liberal education is.

My take (as I told the Czar) is that teachers teach the easiest to teach kids (the smartest) when they should be focusing their efforts on the ones who need more instruction.  Via the Captain, we see that this applies to essentially the entire male gender - since little girls are more eager to please than little boys, schools devote more attention, praise, and good grades on girls even when boys outperform on standardized tests:

What public school teachers prefer is an easy day with obedient, compliant students. Unfortunately for boys, they don’t typically fit into the obedient and compliant category. So, rather than try harder, the teacher simply marks them down and leaves it up to the boys or their parents to deal with it (parents, many of whom are single mothers, definitely share some of the responsibility).

In private schools it’s a different story. Sons of the wealthy have higher academic achievement than their female counterparts. This is because teachers at private schools are informed in no uncertain terms that students’ performance in their classes is directly relevant to their continued employment. Miraculously, rich people’s sons are better educated and perform better every step of the way than their daughters.

Add in the fact that there is a whole feminist organization to push A Nation At Risk while ignoring and downplaying the exact same issues effecting little boys, and there's a clear institutional breakage on the Left.  But I'm sure that it will be entirely different when they're running our health care.

Extra credit question: compare and contrast the expected resource allocations for breast cancer and prostate cancer in an public health institution controlled by a feminist philosophy vs. the same institution without that philosophy.  The answer? You're a patriarchal, sexist pig.

*Facepalm*

I see what she did there.

A funny thing happened when I wasn't posting much

Unexpectedly, I got some linky love from some pretty big sites:

The link pointed here.  It's odd to get that sort of attention, as I just sort of tossed the post off as a minor rant.  But thanks to Harvey at IMAO!

And then Doug Ross linked to this, which was just another sort of tossed-off mini-rant.  Thanks, Doug!

I have to confess, though - my blogging has not been at all up to par this last week with all the travel and meetings.  I guess I just don't understand what attracts a link and what doesn't; maybe that's why the lucrative full time blogging job has yet to materialize.

Busy

Mom's coming to visit.  Blog later.

This is the miracle of grace

Actually, that's about right.

Johannes Brahms - Hungarian Dance No. 1

Image via Wikipedia

Suppose that you were Thomas Edison in the late nineteenth century, and you had a device that could record music for the first time ever.  Who would you ask to record?

When you think of classical music, there is the trinity called the "Three Bs" - Bach, Beethoven, and Brahms.  The first two were dead by Edison's time, but Brahms was still alive.  And so Edison sent his top men to Vienna to ask the master to play one of his songs because of the huge commercial potential of a recording by the composer himself.  And you'd ask him to play one of his most popular songs, naturally.


That would be one of the 21 Hungarian Dances which were wildly popular.  They were popular because they were the perfect music for most people who could afford music.  Most music was performed in the home, and mostly by the daughters of the family.  Music was considered a major part of a young lady's education, and so middle class gentlemen ("bourgeois" in the term of the day) families frequently purchased pianos, music lessons, and sheet music for their little Princesses.  The Hungarian dances were a musical trifecta: quick tempo (in other words, challenging music that would show off the performer's mastery), upbeat tempo (fun to listen to, and therefore popular to a wide range of guests), and written by one of the undisputed greats.

Edison knew his market, as indeed did Brahms. Here is the Berlin Philharmoniker Orchestra conducted by Herbert von Karajan playing this most popular of Brahms' works:



And here is the recording of Brahms himself playing the song for Thomas Edison's wax cylinder recording device in 1889.  It is the earliest recording ever performed by a major composer, and introduced by his voice:

Damn biased media

It must be emergency patch time for Adobe Flash

Because it's been a week or two since the last exploit-from-hell targeting Flash.  This is being targeted in the wild (against Windows and Mac; Linux may be vulnerable but there's no word that it's being exploited).

You'll want to cruise on over to Adobe and get the fix.

I did not know that I grew up on the US Border

The "border" seems to be a little bigger than I thought:

Government agents should not have the right to stop and question Americans anywhere without suspicion within 100 miles of the border, the American Civil Liberties Union said Wednesday, pointing attention to the little known power of the federal government to set up immigration checkpoints far from the nation’s border lines.

I grew up in the state of Maine.  There is no part of the state that is more than 100 miles either from Canada or from the sea.  Since people can come into the country by ship, literally every square inch of the state is excepted from the Fourth Amendment's guarantee of being secure in your person, effects, and home.  I'm sure that some Fed.Gov legal wiz is figuring out how they can justify not getting a warrant to enter your home because "it's on the border" - even where I grew up which is not on the ocean and is a 5 hour drive to Canada.

This no doubt will ease citizens' concerns about the growth of tyrannical government.  Oh, wait:

At the outset of President Obama's second term, he sits atop a government that a majority of Americans - 53 percent - view as a threat to personal rights and freedoms, according to a new poll from the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press.

The American public is actually pretty sensible.  I have a suggestion, if the Fed.Gov wants to not be perceived as being a threat to people's personal rights and freedoms: stop being a threat to people's personal rights and freedoms.

You're welcome.

Do you miss Geocities?

Do you long for the days of blinking web fonts and (ahem) creative page layout?  You can find it alive and well here.  I particularly like the Chinese cover of Love Potion Number Nine.  That gets extra crazy style points for Geocities authenticity.

Hat tip: Bob, who always finds cool stuff.

UPDATE 9 February 2013 14:55: Internet Archaeology has a bunch of cached pages that give you the feel for what Geocities sites were renown for.  I particularly like #24 and #26.  That last one has unicorns, blinky fonts, and a goofy animated GIF of a broken hit counter (just like I have here!).

David Allan Coe - If That Ain't Country

If you can't laugh at yourself, you may be the only one not laughing.  Last week I posted Kitty Wells' great song It Wasn't God Who Made Honky Tonk Angels.  It's one of the greats, filled with sorrow and regret - who'd laugh at that?  Well, David Allan Coe would.

It's sometimes said that aging isn't from the years, it's from the miles and Coe is living proof of that.  Born poor, in Reform School by age 9, in and out of prison for 20 years, he started writing songs in Nashville.  Still poor and trying to get noticed by the Labels, he lived in an old hearse that he parked out side of the Grand Ole Opry.  It worked - he started selling songs, and what a collection of songs it was: Mona Lisa Lost Her Smile, Take This Job And Shove It, Would You Lay With Me (In A Field Of Stone).

Success didn't change his always on the edge of trouble life.  The IRS seized his house for taxes and he went and lived in a cave (really).  He never lost his sense of humor.  This song captures this better than maybe any, as he mocks (with a wink) the whole genre of "I'm so Country" songs.  If anyone can write a song about the troubles of life, it's David Allan Coe.  But he threw in a final perfect verse at the end that offers a sly smile to Kitty Wells and the early Country greats - and how their songs sounded remarkably similar.



If That Ain't Country (Songwriter: David Allan Coe)

The old man was covered in tattoos and scars;
He got some in prison and others in bars.
The rest, he got workin' on old junk cars...
In the daytime.
They looked like tombstones in our yard
And I never seen him when he wasn't tired
And mean.

He sold used parts to make ends meet
Covered with sweat in the Texas heat
And mosquitoes.
And the neighbors said we lived like hicks
But they brung their cars for Paw to fix
Anyhow.

He was veteran-proud - tried and true;
He'd fought till his heart was black and blue.
Didn't know how he'd made it through
The hard times.
He bought our house on the G.I. Bill
But it wasn't worth all he had to kill
To get it.

He drank Pearl in a can and Jack Daniels Black,
Chewed tobacco from a mail pouch sack,
Had an old dog that was trained to attack...
Sometimes.
He'd get drunk and mean as a rattlesnake
And there wasn't much that he would take
From a stranger.

There was thirteen kids and a bunch of dogs,
House full of chickens and a yard full of hogs;
Spent the summertime cuttin' up logs
For the winter.
Tryin' like the devil to find the Lord;
Workin' like a nigger for my room and board;
Coal-burnin' stove - no natural gas -
If that ain't 'Country', I'll kiss your ass.

If that ain't 'country', it'll hair-lip the Pope.
If that ain't 'country', it's a damn good joke.
I've seen the Grand Ol' Opry, and I've met Johnny Cash.
If that ain't 'Country', I'll kiss your ass.

Momma sells eggs at the grocery store.
My oldest sister is a first-rate whore.
Dad says she can't come home anymore
And he means it.
Ma just sits and keeps her silence.
Sister, she left 'cause Dad got violent
And he knows it.

Momma, she's old far beyond her times,
Choppin' tobacco and I seen her cryin'
When blood started flowin' from her callused hands
And it hurt me.
She'd just keep workin' - tryin' to help the old man
Till the end of one row then back again
Like always.

She's been through Hell since Junior went to jail.
When the lights go out she ain't never failed
To get down on her knees and pray
Because she loves him.
Told all the neighbors he off in the war
Fightin' for freedom and he's good to the core
And she's proud.

Now, our place was a graveyard for automobiles.
At the end of the porch there was four stacks of wheels
And tires for sale for a dollar or two
Cash.
There was fifty holes in our old tin roof,
Me and my family was livin' proof
That people who forgot about poor white trash,
And if that ain't 'Country', I'll kiss your ass.

If that ain't 'country', it'll hair-lip the Pope.
If that ain't 'country', it's a damn good joke.
I've seen the Grand Ol' Opry, and I've met Johnny Cash.
If that ain't 'Country', I'll kiss your ass.

An' I'm thinkin' tonight of my blue eyes,
And flyin' with the gray speckled bird.
I didn't know God made honky-tonk angels
And went back to the wild side of life.

Ah, home

#1 Son picked me up at the airport, we went to dinner for shish kebab and felafel, and stopped at Krispy Kreme on the way home.  Yeah, I spoil 'em rotten.

Wolfgang and Crash the Wondercat gave me quite a nice greeting. 

Now it's bourbon and Krispy Kreme.  What a long week.  Blogging will be back to a regular schedule tomorrow.

Weer'd things seen in the Atlanta airport

They make the jazz swing. The bassist is particularly good.




And the T Gates are pretty cool, too. Non-musical, yes, but requiring no subway ride to the terminal.

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Weer'd things seen in the Vancouver airport

Remember, you are not a duck. But these are:




It's going to be a good day, Scooter. My return connection in the Toronto ZOMG Blizzard is now via Dallas. And I'll be back 3 hours earlier. Win.

And the normal rule of business travel applies: it's always a good flight when you're heading home.

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Snow? What snow?

Vancouver needs a higher caliber of beggar

I met reader Ron for dinner last night which was quite good fun.  He is in Vancouver regularly, and so we got together for burgers and beers.  It was great fun, and always fun to meet someone from our little corner of Al Gore's Information Superhighway.

And there's a decent blog post that will come out of that, where some ideas I'd been having crystallized.  That will have to wait for another day.  Instead, I have to make a statement about the low caliber of the beggars on Vancouver's streets.

Like other pretty but hippy-dippy cities (San Francisco, Boulder, Portland) it attracts middle class kids who get a kick out of slumming as pan handlers.  Easy to pick them out: well dressed, well groomed, well fed.

I actually find this seriously annoying - there are people who actually do need help.  I remember one in Austin whose face was a study of misery and shame.  She's the type that I don't think twice about giving some cash.  Or the guy by the side of the road with the sign saying Wife and dog kidnapped by space aliens.  Need cash for martial arts lessons.  I gave him a sawbuck because his street theater made me laugh.

The punks last night?  They weren't clever, they weren't in need, they weren't even good liars, and they didn't even remember that they'd tried to hit on us before.  And one of them didn't seem to appreciate my single word "No" answer.  It seemed to somehow offend his sense of dignity, or something.

Look, yuppie hippy dude - no means no.  Sheesh.

The weather in Vancouver: Blizzard of the century

Well, the weather here looks to be pretty nice, actually.  The weather in the northeast looks to be considerably less nice.  Normally this would be Yet Another time to congratulate myself for moving back south, but my flight tomorrow is through Toronto.

Expecting almost a foot of snow and 25 mph winds tomorrow.  Somehow, confidence is not high for a smooth changeover to the return leg to Atlanta.  Oh bother.

And after being on hold for an hour, the travel agent said that Delta had released the reservation to Westjet (who?) and they couldn't reroute me.  Westjet's automated system tells me that hold times are running 40 minutes or more.  Oh double bother.

Any fliers/road warriors have any opinion as to whether Toronto will keep operating normally in these conditions?

I still suck

No time to blog makes me a sad panda.


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Quote of the day

It's the regulation, dummy:

Regulation has a far higher impact on the life, quality of life and wealth of the citizenry than does taxation and transfers.  Depending on how whether you use conservative or radical estimates and how bad your tax bracket is, the numbers are somewhere between 2x and 40x differences.  Anyone talking about government problems in terms of transfers is playing in the kiddie pool.

There's more which explains in part the deep pit of FAIL that the GOP is stuck in.  RTWT.

I want one of these

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